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Month: May 2016

Alright, another Tuesday, another tale, but before we get to that, I’m going to ask for a bit of help.

You see, I’m trying to give this author thing a legitimate shot, writing e-books, starting a web-serial, doing a few other things. But I’m poor, so the books are edited by me with bad covers, and I can’t afford to advertise. In fact, it’s looking like I may not be able to afford my internet. (If that happens, expect a long hiatus.)Not going to lie, I’m stressing out here.

I’m not going to write a sob story here, but if I could actually find a job I would. Suffice to say that’s not possible for a variety of reasons, and leave it at that. So here’s my question, now that you’re all hopefully awake:

How can I go about advertising a web serial (https://petowblog.wordpress.com/ ), a Patreon, and ebooks for no actual cost? Where would I go? If you go somewhere, where? Any advice out there at all on this?

Okay, rant off. It’s story time, five minutes up on the clock and away we go:

She managed to scramble onto her limbs as security came, driving herself into the bedroom on shaky legs before collapsing and rolling under the bed. Luckily she had made no noise; whatever power she had used to do all these strange things, whatever magic, it was nearly depleted now.

She slowed her breathing, focusing on what her ears told her.

“There’s some dirt here. Mr. Simms is going to be pissed.” said mook number one.

“Yeah, but how did it get there? No one’s even been in here except us and my shoes are clean.” questioned mook number two.

“So are mine; I’d say the strike team did it, but they weren’t in here either, were they? And I’m sure I heard a thump just now.” Mook number one sounded honestly scared.

“Look. Look at the window. One of those idiots let his entry rope fall. West side, so it was Griff.”

The crackle of a radio. “Griff, report.”

Another crackle and the voice that could only be Griff responded, sounding annoyed. “Nothing to report. What do you want?”

“I want you to pull up your quick entry rope, you moron, it bounced on the window down here.”

Crackle. “Whoops, how did that happen? Oh well, hope I didn’t scare you ladies too badly.”

A mutter “I’ll lady you, you bastard.”

They moved off, and she heard a door close. they hadn’t even checked the bedroom. She was safe, for now.

Alright, there we have it. I went over a tad; five minutes and 23 seconds. Wanted to end on a proper cliffhanger, and not in the middle​ of the encounter. See you next week!

It was voting day. He shook his head; he was being voted in again. Steward, the benevolent​, dictator of the decade. It was all but a landslide before the actual vote was cast; today it was a forgone conclusion.

Steward had abolished several rights, ballooned the nation’s debt, and made several nations his enemies with shortsighted policies. And yet, the man was well liked. He pondered the famous words of Voltaire​ as he cast his vote against, knowing it was futile:

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” -Voltaire.

He was attacked on his way home from the voting booth for not voting the correct way. He died in the hospital not a week later, during the swearing in ceremony.

Alright, not my best work, but hey, I tried. Who else likes dystopias? As always, this is for Silver Threading at:

I’ll be setting a link up to it on this blog as soon as I figure out how. 🙂

But for now, on to this particular show; five minutes on the clock and away we go:

Sometimes the best solutions were the easiest. She looked again at the guards on the roof; she looked more closely at their stations. They all had ropes and harness set aside nearby. She picked the station on the East; further away from the setting sun, it had more shadows.

She gathered the harness and rope slowly as a creeping glacier, using her new skill on it all the while. The guard fixed his head on a point far in the distance in response, and if anything got more vigilant. At least towards anything not on his left side and slightly behind him.

She waited a half-hour after gathering it up. It took that long to focus on him; then all of a sudden he looked to his right at something only he could see, and she jumped.

The wind threw her small weight around as if she were a leaf, but eventually, she managed to land next to the window. The clear window, showing a perfect view of an empty suite.

Another focus, a twist in clarity, and she was in it, hunched on all fours on the plush carpeting, trying to shake off the sudden fatigue.

“Did you hear that?”

The question perked her ears, and she scrambled for the closest door before the response came:

“Yeah, I did. Let’s go.”

And time! Total time elapsed is five minutes on the dot. See you next week!

Alright, going back to the old way of doing things, mainly because I want to. No story, just a nice funny quote from a cultural anthropologist who graduated Barnard college and Columbia university. Born in 1901, she pioneered the use of cultural anthropology and helped influence the sexual revolution. she died in 1978. Ladies and gentlemen, Margeret Mead:

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” – Margeret Mead.

Alright, everyone who comes here knows how this works by now; five minutes on the clock and away we go!

Riding the elevator to the top floor wasn’t something she could do, but comfortably cloaked in the illusion of one of the help, walking up the staircase to the roof was possible. It was even possible to fast talk the guards at the stairwell door, even ignoring the smell of Josh coming from the blocked off top floor; they saw her as someone who had every right to be there. An elevator or air conditioner maintenance technician, she thought, but she didn’t ask which. It wasn’t important.

This Simms guy was paranoid; there were even guards on the roof, though none were looking her way. After all, she’d been cleared by the staff downstairs so she was safe, right? Keeping an eye out for snipers in the surrounding buildings was more important.

She reached the edge of the roof and looked down. The next trick was getting down, and getting through the by no means weak or easily broken windows. She knew she should have packed a rope.

And there we go, elapsed time is four minutes fifty-eight seconds. See you next week!

Also… release time on the first web serial installment is this week. Hopefully I’ll see you all for that too.

My goal with this blog is to offend everyone in the world at least once with my words… so no one has a reason to have a heightened sense of themselves. We are all ignorant, we are all found wanting, we are all bad people sometimes.